This is a blog of essays on public policy. It shuns ideology and applies facts, logic and math to economic, social and political problems. It has a subject-matter index, a list of recent posts, and permalinks at the ends of posts. Comments are moderated and may take time to appear. Note: Profile updated 4/7/12

15 November 2008

Hillary Clinton: A Bad Idea Then, a Bad Idea Now

My first reaction on hearing that President-Elect Obama is supposedly considering Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State was, “you’ve got to be kidding!” Here are seven reasons why she should not be, and probably won’t be, appointed to that or any other similarly visible Cabinet post:

1. Hillary Clinton is no diplomat. She’s a self-proclaimed “fighter,” a skilled legal advocate, and a superb self-promoter. Decorum, understatement, and subtlety—the traits of diplomats—are not her thing.

2. Hillary Clinton has no experience in diplomacy.Nothing but phantom “experience” emerged from her extended primary campaign, including her supposed landing in Bosnia under sniper fire. The closest she got to real diplomacy was some ceremonial work with women’s groups in Northern Ireland.

4. Hillary Clinton is not a team player. In her campaign and stump speeches, she used the first-person singular more than any politician I can remember. Both she and her husband have super-sized egos ill-suited to teamwork, let alone teamwork in diplomacy. Diplomats have to be willing to work for months in secrecy and obscurity, caring only about getting the job done, not who gets credit.

5. Hillary Clinton’s positions on foreign policy have been risky and dangerous. Remember her threatening to “obliterate” Iran during the presidential debates? Having her leading State would make us less secure. Among other things, it would risk squandering the extended honeymoon that global admiration for President-Elect Obama now promises.

6. Neither Hillary nor Bill ever had much interest in foreign policy. Domestic policy was their thing. Bill (like Dubya) missed a chance to get bin Laden, resolved too late to fight the genocide in Bosnia, and failed (despite valiant effort) to advance the cause of peace in the Middle East. This is far from a stellar record. Hillary may cite it as vicarious “experience” (as she did during the campaign), but it is nothing to brag about.

7. Millions of voters, like me, supported Barack Obama because he has so much more to offer than either of the Clintons. We are overjoyed to have a true adult in charge of our nation—someone quiet, thoughtful, dignified, circumspect, self-effacing and self-restrained.

We have no doubt of Obama’s toughness, but toughness doesn’t require trash talk. We are tired of hucksters and self-promoters running and representing our country. We wanted to see the Clintons’ backs and still do. We want a fresh start, especially in foreign policy.

In his running mate, President-Elect Obama has one of the most experienced hands in foreign policy in all our national leadership. He doesn’t need the advice of someone who never negotiated with any foreign leader for real, i.e., while bearing responsibility for results.

He does need the help of patient, skilled, experienced international negotiators like Richard Holbrooke and Christopher Hill. They both have shown they can work tirelessly in relative obscurity for months at a time to achieve a limited but important result. Who would even think of Hillary Clinton for a post requiring those skills—after all we learned about her during the primary campaign?

1 Comments:

I am taking the unusual step of posting a reply to a comment without posting the comment.

A commenter calling himself “The Stark Raving Viking” (“SRV”) accuses Hillary Clinton of complicity or involvement in some sort of corruption. I have no idea whether the charges are true, or even whether they have any basis in fact. After watching fifteen minutes of the 52-minute video to which SRV links, I still have no idea whether the charges are true or whether there is any factual basis for them. The portion of the video that I watched contained allegations and innuendo, but not a single fact from which corruption might be inferred. I simply did not have the patience to watch the rest of the video.

I also refuse to post the comment because it seems, at least in part, designed to tout the commenter’s skills as a cameraman and interviewer. That purpose failed miserably. By eliciting nothing of factual substance from his interviewee for fifteen minutes, the commenter showed only that he needs to take a course in journalism.

I stress that I do not share, or even understand, SRV’s or his interviewee’s charges. If SRV has facts to back them up, he is welcome to send another comment summarizing the facts. But I will not post serious charges on this blog without reasonable factual substantiation. That’s dirty politics.

I oppose Hillary Clinton’s nomination as Secretary of State because I think she is unqualified for that position and would be incompetent or only marginally competent in it. I think we can do much better. But I have no reason to suspect, and I do not suspect, that she is dishonest or corrupt in any respect.

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About Me

This blog reflects a quarter century of study and forty years of careers in science/engineering (7 years), law practice (8 years) and law teaching (25 years). A short bio and legal publication list appear here. My pre-retirement 2010 CV appears here.
As I get older, I find myself thinking more like an engineer and less like a lawyer or law professor. Our “advocacy” professions—law, politics, public relations and advertising—train people to take a predetermined position and support it against all opposition. That’s not the best way to make things work—which is what engineers do.
What gets me up in the morning is figuring out how things work and how to make them work better, whether they be vehicles, energy systems, governments or nations.
This post explains my respect for math and why you’ll find lots of tables and a few graphs and equations on this blog. If you like that way of thinking, this blog is for you.